Koine Foundations

¹⁶ Then Pilate handed Him over to them to be crucified. Therefore the soldiers took charge of Jesus, ¹⁷ and carrying His own cross, He went out to what is called “the Place of the Skull” (in Aramaic it is called “Golgotha”).
¹⁸ There they crucified Him and two other men with Him – one on each side with Jesus in the middle. ¹⁹ Now Pilate also wrote a placard and placed it on the cross. It read: Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. (John 19:16-19)

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Word Focus
cross
σταυρός / stauros
<Hear It>

I crucify
σταυρόω / stauroō
<Hear It>

crucifixion
ἀνασταύρωσις / anastaurosis
<Hear It>

With the approach of the Easter season, I will focus on words related to Easter in the next few posts from John 19:16-19. One of the major words associated with Easter and Christianity is “cross” (σταυρός / stauros). This post will focus on “cross” and the related words “crucify” (σταυρόω / stauroō) and “crucifixion” (ἀνασταύρωσις / anastaurosis).

The key verses above pick up the report of Jesus’ crucifixion where Pilate handed Jesus over to be crucified after he had passed sentence on Him. Pontius Pilate was the the Roman governor of the Roman province of Judaea, ruling under Emperor Tiberius from 26/27 to 36/37 AD. Historians date Jesus’ crucifixion to sometime around 30 or 33 AD.

Crucifixion, a form of capital punishment, was typically carried out by a squad of four Roman soldiers and a centurion. Crucifixion was a brutal and shameful form of execution. Brutal because the condemned often suffered for several days at the mercy of the elements, and shameful because the condemned was stripped naked and then exposed to mocking and ridicule by observers. The condemned eventually died by suffocation, loss of bodily fluids, and organ failure. In some cases the executioners showed “mercy” to the condemned by breaking their legs to hasten death by suffocation. The two men crucified with Jesus suffered this fate, but Jesus did not because he was already dead (see John 19:32-33). In this instance, this was probably done as a concession to the Jews so the bodies would not hang on the cross overnight in violation of the Old Testament Law (see Deuteronomy 21:22-23). Crucifixion was reserved for slaves and revolutionaries and was not used on Roman citizens.

John, and the other Gospel writers, do not describe the horrible process of crucifixion (ἀνασταύρωσις / anastaurosis). John simply says, “They crucified Him” (verse 19:18). The fact of the crucifixion is what is important, not the process – Jesus Christ died as a sinner for sinful men and women. Those who put their trust in Him are rescued from eternal death to everlasting life, and from brokenness to wholeness. (See previous post on Savior.) Also, the original readers knew the process because they saw it frequently. For example, in 7 AD the Romans crucified 2000 Jews in Jerusalem after they crushed a rebellion, and the crucifixion of criminals was a common occurrence. Note that this Greek noun for crucifixion does not appear in the New Testament. The process is always described by the verb σταυρόω / stauroō.

Even though crucifixion was a common punishment described in written historical accounts, there was no physical archaeological evidence for it until recently. Click here to link to a scholarly article at the Biblical Archaeology Society that describes an archaeological excavation in Jerusalem in 1968 that uncovered the bones of a crucified victim. The link includes the original report in Biblical Archaeology Review. The article is long but contains excellent historical information about the process of crucifixion – its history, how it was done, and what caused death. You should also click here to read the follow up article that provides a newer analysis on how the victim was crucified. What I find most fascinating is that even 2000 years later we know the name of the victim – Yehohanan son of Hagakol.

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Word Focus Lexicon

Lexical Form: ὁ σταυρός σταυροῦ <Hear It>
Gloss: cross
Part of Speech: Second Declension Masculine Noun
New Testament Frequency: 27
Strong’s Number: G4716 (Link to Blue Letter Bible Lexicon)

Lexical Form: σταυρόω <Hear It>
Gloss: I crucify
Part of Speech: Omega Contract Verb
New Testament Frequency: 46
Strong’s Number: G4717 (Link to Blue Letter Bible Lexicon)

Lexical Form: ἡ ἀνασταύρωσις ἀνασταύρεως <Hear It>
Gloss: crucifixion
Part of Speech: Third Declension Feminine Noun
New Testament Frequency: 0
Strong’s Number: Word is not used in the Greek New Testament – For information see Liddell-Scott Greek-English Lexicon entry for ἀνασταυρίζω on page121.

Unless otherwise noted, English translations of Bible verses are by the author from the Greek text and are not quotations from any copyrighted Bible version or translation.