I want to tell you a story.

It's April 3rd, AD 33. It's getting pretty close. I want to tell you a story.

It's April 3rd, AD 33.

It's getting pretty close to 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

The city is Jerusalem, the city of the great king.

It's Passover.

The town is packed and bustling with Sabbath preparations.

Mothers are preparing the Passover Seder.

Fathers are closing down shops.

Children are playing in the streets.

The smell of baking bread hangs in the air.

In the temple, the high priest is sharpening the knife with which he will slit the throat of the Passover lamb. Hours ago at Pilots Praetorium, which is the soldiers garrison, the soldiers wedged a post

in a hole in a Herodian stone and they lashed a prisoner to it and somebody got a hold of him

with the Roman scourge. The scour somebody got a hold of him with the roman scourge

the scourge is a whip of sorts with a piece of wood about that long and then maybe some metal

or leather straps about that long and in the ends of it will be nails glass rock this is not

Indiana Jones so when it is swung the pieces on the end wrap around the body of the

condemned and they embed in the flesh so when the executioner pulls it back he removes bits and

pieces the ground around the hole is scattered with those pieces and it's painted red.

There's a blood groove that drains off to a gutter and kind of over there on the side or about 10 horizontal and vertical lines.

It looks like a tic-tac towboard of sorts.

And we know from Roman record that Roman soldiers would use that as a dice game

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