What Crimes were punishable by crucifixion?

Answer 1

Principally acts:

1. Of terrorism (or imputed terrorism such as speaking out against Rome) or

2. Flying in the face of Roman custom (such as slaves either rebelling against their masters or disrespecting them with acts of theft, violence, spitting in their food or rape).

It was therefore a punishment largely reserved for slaves or apprehended rebels and was not administered to Roman citizens (which explains why Saint Paul, a Roman citizen [citizen of Rome being a legal rather than ethnic status] was beheaded rather than crucified whereas Saint Peter WAS crucified for preaching a seditious doctrine of divinity not residing in Rome's emperors but in Christ).

The interesting question this raises is why Jesus was crucified when there is nothing overtly anti-Roman in his views; unless of course Jesus' true mission was whitewashed to hide his zealot terrorist leanings.

If this is questioned consider that among Jesus' known apostles were:

1. Simon the Zealot

2. Judas Sicarius (the Sicarii were a group of Hebrew terrorists who killed with a special dagger known as a Sicarii - these men had their own Krav Maga style martial art and were the blueprint for the pseudo Islamic Hasshashin)

3. James and John the Sons of Thunder (a rank used by the zealots)

4. Peter, who was armed with a sword in Gethsemane and who Jesus begged to stop carving a swathe through the Temple Guard

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