Hand in Hebrew

[muffler dragon]

Yafet brought up a point in the cross thread that reminded me of something I heard some time ago.

A gentleman I ran into told me that for a Jew during the Temple peiod the hand extended down the forearm.

The picture he painted for me was one of hand washing. You have a basin in front of you, wash your hands, and then dip underneath the water near your torso and extend outward under the water. As your hands raise out of the water, you then lift your hands up near your face and allow the water to run down your forearms and possibly to your elbows.

He said that what the water touched could be called the hand in Hebrew.

The reason this came up was because we were discussing the crucifixion, weight issues, bone breaking and all that fun stuff.

If anyone has ever seen an x-ray of their forearm (as I have on each arm due to breaks in the hand), then you will notice that the forearm is made up of two linear bones that come together at the elbow and wrist.

So to sum up, during a crucifixion the one being crucified has a nail driven just below the wrist (not in the hand). The wrist then allows the body to hang upon the nail without possibility of tear or otherwise.

Is this a sound synopsis of how this act was performed or is it a matter of trying to fit something? I have grown accustomed to being perturbed when I see in films that a hand is being pierced instead of the forearm, but I can change my ways if necessary.

Thanks,

Nathan

[Sephania]

I read a book a long time ago that was a medical "reconstruction" of the crucifixtion and the horrors leading up to it. It was written by a physician and spoke of the same thing. The fingers do not have anything there that would support the upper torso let alone the whole body and the space between the radial and ulna bones has a small circle or hollow. I thought I remembered reading that there was no word when this was written, either greek or Aramaic or Hebrew, (don't remember) for the wrist that it was considered a part of the hand like the ankle was to the foot.
If you push on the inside of your wrist you will feel the "hollow" area, this is where the nail was placed.

It s odd but on the shroud of Turin the blood stains do not eminate from the hands but rather the wrists and the thumbs are missing. When a nail is placed in the area betwen the arm bones at the wrist they put pressure on a nerve that connects to the thumb and travels up the arm. Some that have carpel tunnel syndrome know what this is like, when this nerve is hit , it sends excrusiating ( word comes from crucifixtion) pain up the arm and basically closes the thumb, it moves by itself to the indside of the palm. Thus forgery or not whoever "did" the desgn on the shroud would have had to have intimate knowledge of the human body and how it reacts during a crucifixtion.

[The Thadman]

All I know is that "hand" in Aramaic does cover from the elbow to the fingertips. To refer to the actual hand, one would refer to the "palm of the hand."

I'll have to look this up once I get home :)

Peace!
-Steve-o