Title:
Crucifixion in the Mediterranean World
Series: Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament 327
Author: John Granger Cook
Bibliographic info: xxiv + 536 pp. = 560 pages in all.
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck, 2014.
Buy the book at your local bookseller.
Also available Abebooks, Barnes and Noble, the Publisher, or Amazon.com.
Also available Abebooks, Barnes and Noble, the Publisher, or Amazon.com.
John Granger Cook has written an immense volume on how the Romans suspended people, reviewed a little more than a year ago at various places, like here. The tome appears to be an exhaustive work on the Roman practice and Dr. Cook has done a great deal of research, and mind you, careful research, too. I've gone through the first one hundred pages of the text proper so far and for the most part it's very excellent.
Yet I already have a few beefs with it. First, the Latin crux and the Greek σταυρός certainly do mean, which Dr. Cook disputes, "a pole in the broadest sense" -- Gunnar Samuelsson's words, not mine. My previous post, Crux Utilitatis, demonstrates that they do mean exactly that. Second, the Romans probably never or hardly ever used crosses (two timber beams inlaid into each other); more likely they usually pushed up or hoisted people onto poles using lifting-beams (i.e., patibula) instead, and other times they nailed the lifting-beam with the person on it onto the pole and tilted the macabre assembly up. Third, that the Romans never impaled people when they "crucified" them -- two graffiti and some of the ancient writings give lie to that!
Yet I already have a few beefs with it. First, the Latin crux and the Greek σταυρός certainly do mean, which Dr. Cook disputes, "a pole in the broadest sense" -- Gunnar Samuelsson's words, not mine. My previous post, Crux Utilitatis, demonstrates that they do mean exactly that. Second, the Romans probably never or hardly ever used crosses (two timber beams inlaid into each other); more likely they usually pushed up or hoisted people onto poles using lifting-beams (i.e., patibula) instead, and other times they nailed the lifting-beam with the person on it onto the pole and tilted the macabre assembly up. Third, that the Romans never impaled people when they "crucified" them -- two graffiti and some of the ancient writings give lie to that!
Well this is my first installment of my review, I'll be updating this post with a description of the book and then follow up with my musings on it as time progresses.
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