Christianity Today went viral over the Easter weekend for all the wrong reasons.
Last week, the Christian magazine asked a provocative question: Was Jesus crucified with nails?
The query stemmed from a novel theory created by Bible scholar Jeffrey P. Arroyo García, who recently published a paper in an academic journal titled, “Nails or Knots — How Was Jesus Crucified?”
The theory goes like this: The Gospel accounts in the New Testament do not explicitly say that Jesus was affixed to the cross with nails, neither do the earliest accounts of Roman crucifixion mention nails, so Jesus could have been hung to the cross with rope, right? After all, being nailed to a cross is not what kills the condemned; death comes through suffocation, caused by suspension on the cross. And that passage in John’s Gospel about doubting Thomas? It was probably written in the late first century after crucifixion with nails had become more common — allegedly.
On Holy Saturday — the day between Good Friday, which marks the day Jesus died, and Easter Sunday, the day of His resurrection — Christianity Today posted its story on X.
By Monday, the post had more than 2.4 million views, it…
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