mickw

Does anyone have a source and/or some info on what types of crimes and what-not would get you crucified in Biblical times?

Reason I ask is I thought I saw somewhere that theft was not punishable by crucifixion, and yet we have Jesus crucified along with two thieves.

Thanks for any info.

yummyfur

They weren't thieves really, but brigands or outlaws or plunderers. The Greek word used here is Lestes. Such persons were members of decent sized armed groups who would raid and plunder, the Romans considered them enemies of the state, and therefor they would be crucified. So we aren't talking about pickpockets or pilferers or cutpurses here. The Greek for this kind of actions would more likely be Kleptes.

Amaleq13

IIUC, in addition to crimes against the "state" mentioned above, the murder of a Roman citizen was also punishable by crucifixion.

cognac

How would crucifixion be used instead of just wacking off their heads? Or was there any sort of legal standard for what punishments were to be used? Josephus records rebels [plunderers] being run down and just having their heads wacked off when the soldiers caught up with them.

From Antiquities, Book 17, Chapter 10

Toto

A person in the heat of battle would be killed by whatever was at hand.

Crucifixion was generally used for rebels, and was intended to torture and himilate the person being crucified. Philo records the elderly leaders of the Jewish community in Alexandria being crucified. The punishment had more to do with the status of the condemned than the nature of the crime.

"Bandit" is a common euphemism for a political insurgent in many different times and places.

Paul is recorded as being beheaded because he was allegedly a Roman citizen, and that was the appropriate punishment for a person of that status.

Dargo

Weren't escaped slaves also subject to crucifiction?

cognac

Do you have the Philo reference?

Chili

The imago of sinners was crucified according to Jewish law so they could sin no more and Pilate reluctantly obliged. Pilate liked sinners, obviously, because he could find no fault with the man and defended the innocence of Jesus three times.

Chris Weimer

No, they were branded with a FUG on their forehead instead. But if a slave killed his master, then he were to be crucified.

Chili

Toto, do we have any physical evidence of those crucifixions or are they all from records that seem rather mythical at best. Like I know, or suspect, that the crucifixion of Jesus was reported some 100 years later to kind of let all skeletons die first.

Or do you think maybe they did some real ones so the Internet Infidels would have something to argue about 2000 years later.