First Glance

In “Two Questions About Crucifixion: Does the Victim Die of Asphyxiation? Would Nails in the Hands Hold the Weight of the Body?” Frederick T. Zugibe counters two popular theories. Jesus died of shock, not asphyxiation, says Zugibe. And palms (not wrists, as most people today assume), if nailed to the cross in a specific place, could support several hundred pounds of human weight. Chief medical examiner for Rockland County, New York, Zugibe bases his counter theories on extensive studies—of live volunteers in his own laboratory, of data from World War I and World War II, and of evidence from the human anatomy dissection laboratory.

To support his presentation, Zugibe refutes scientific observations based on the Shroud of Turin, a cloth revered for centuries as the burial sheet of Jesus. Results of the recent radiocarbon dating of the shroud are reported in the sidebar entitled, “Has the Shroud of Turin Been Dated—Finally?”

Zugibe is adjunct associate professor of pathology at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. A civic leader who has earned numerous awards for public service, he is the author of The Cross and the Shroud—A Medical Examiner Investigates the Crucifixion (Paragon House, 2nd ed., 1988) and Fourteen Days to a Healthy Heart (Macmillan, 1986).